C Team 2, Macclesfield B 3.

An outgraded C Team (our average grade 111, theirs 134) lost 2-3 at home to Macclesfield B on 23 November 2011, but with an excellent win by Andy B and draws against strong opposition by Paul (fighting the opponent featured in Tudor's game vs Macc A (blog, passim)) and Sion.

The scoresheet and grades are:

B1 Paul Bamford (130) 1/2 G Laurence (150) 1/2

B2 Bill Tait (120) 0, R Pomeroy (137) 1,

B3 Sion Howells (110) 1/2, R Murphy (134)1/2,

B4 Andy Buckley (100) 1, A Brough (131) 0

B5 Ian Vaughan (93) 0, A Sime (117) 1.

(Nerd alert: the C Team's grades are almost an arithmetic progression.)

The return match away, on a Tuesday, will be postponed probably until early January 2012.

Tudor gives up his Queen

Here is a recent win of Tudor's playing for our A team against Macclesfield A.

One thing for King's Indian players to note is that Tudor's move order allowed White to transpose to the Pirc (playing e4 without c4.) If you want to avoid this you should play 2. ... g6 so that you can reply to 3. Nc3 with d5.

Now over to Tudor.

The game involves a bishop sacrifice as only way to keep attack going. Then I found a nice queen sacrifice which was not just a variation of a known one.

The interesting thing for me was the very thematic way the game unfolded with black backing the Q side pawn storm against white’s superior centre. ICC analysis suggests white was always slightly ahead until 21 Ka3 (Kb1 leaves black having to find a win for his pressure and B sac. ).

During last few moves I was trying to get all my pieces coordinated into attack. I had noticed possibilities of Bf8 pinning White’s Queen but it did not quite work. Only then did I look for something better and noticed the very satisfying Queen sac (which seems a bit more obvious after the game.)

EC C 3, 3Cs 2

This was only the second match for 3Cs in the Stockport League: this keen team deserve their place. Bill notes:

"It was a really friendly club with photos of every World Chess champion on the walls and an impressive cabinet full of silver trophies etc. Tea was on offer on arrival ( no John Willie Lees) and the team played against young but strong competetion.30 mins home - an easy run. Worth giving this young team a go but travel could be awkward on a really bad night (but would it be any worse than Buxton?)."

Ian (er, that would be me) miscalculated and never recovered. Mike won a hard fought French Defence. Andy won and Bill maintained a strong mid game advantage to seal the match.

Edwin writes:

"This was my second match for East Cheshire and roughly my tenth game of chess in the last twenty years. I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge! It has dawned on me that my openings need some serious work as in both matches I have conceded too much ground and played the middle game on the back foot, one piece down. I havemanaged to rally in each game during the middle game and seize the initiative, only to succumb to a foolish move giving away a match winning piece. Either that or I am kidding myself! (Must try harder D-)"

ECA 2 Chorlton A 4

Aaaaagh Aaaaagh Aaaaagh

If our loss to Macclesfield A was frustrating then this defeat was a kick in the proverbials.

We managed to throw away 3 winning positions against a strong Chorlton team.

Keven's game was first to finish with Keven being ground down in a Reti / Catalan. David then won his game, winning a piece in the middlegame. This left the match at 1-1 and at least three of the remaining matches were winning for us.

Paul played a great modern defence and was the exchange and pawns up but allowed a swindle.

Sion was easily winning with a strong Kingside attack but in time trouble lost his Queen.

I had my best scalp ever, winning on the Black side of a mainline Sicilian Dragon. Once we had banged out all the theory Hope went wrong quite soon, allowing a piece to be trapped. In bad time trouble I managed to find the right plan to close out the game efficiently.

This left Tudor needing to win to draw the match. As he had Queen against Rook and Bishop this looked achievable. However when all the pawns were traded except for the Kingside ones it became rather technical. Tudor wanted to accept the draw offer but gamely agreed to continue for the sake of the team. I still maintain that he had winning chances but unfortunately Tudor lost.

So two defeats out of two. The good news is that we should have Dave Newall and John back for the next game - away to Denton B in three weeks.

1. Phil Ramsey 1-0 Hope Mkhumba (184)
2. Keven Holton 0-1 Philip Olbison (162)
3. Tudor Rickars 0-1 Alan Beresford (150)
4. David Taylor 1-0 Steve Fogg (150)
5. Paul Bamford 0-1 David Kierman (143)
6. Sion Howells 0-1 Khalid Khokhar (128)

C Team vs Ashton 26 October 2011

Well okay, we lost our first match of the season, but congratulations to our points-gainers Sion (playing a 127 grader) and Qasim (playing a 77 grader). Special thanks to Alan for agreeing to play Ashton's P Armstrong (graded 174) on board one - we salute you.

Score was East Cheshire C 1 1/2: Ashton 3 1/2.

ECA 2.5 Macc A 3.5

AAARG!!!!

We almost had the result of the (admittedly young) season last night with a narrow loss to a very strong Macclesfield A side.

With just my game remaining the score was 2.5 each. Sadly I had thrown away my advantage and had no time left to find a swindle so we lost. Here is the scorecard:

1. P Ramsey 0-1 A Soames (172)
2. K Holton 0-1 D Risley (171)
3. D Broadbent 0.5-0.5 V Kumar (155)
4. D Taylor 0-1 D Lobo (153)
5. T Rickards 1-0 G Laurence (150)
6. P Bamford 1-0 P Caulkett (148)

Their average grade was 158 against our 137!

I had a nice King's Indian against Soames. He had no threats at all in the middlegame whereas I had a Kingside pawn storm so I turned down his draw offer. Sadly at one point I pushed the wrong pawn and lost a pawn for not enough compensation. I managed to create some threats in the late middlegame but his time advantage was too great and he found a way to exchange into a winning endgame. An enjoyable game though.

Keven was gradually ground down by Risley who had long-term Queenside pressure on Keven's pawns.

Dave B had a great opening against Kumar and was a pawn up at one stage. He exchanged off into a good endgame but Kumar managed to draw.

David T lost the exchange to Lobo and then won it back but was ground down in the ending.

Tudor has a great King's Indian as his opponent castled Queenside and Tudor flung his pawns forwards. Laurence had little counterplay and Tudor's attach was irresistible.

Paul had a great opening against Caulkett and was far ahead in development. Next time I looked Paul was defending an endgame 2 pawns down but he managed to win it!

A great performance. We will play weaker teams in future and field stronger teams so if we can keep this level up we will be fine.

Next match in two weeks at home to Chorlton.

C Team finishes on a high note, but ...

For their last match this season the C Team played hosts to Chorlton B and conceded only half a point to win 4.5 to 0.5. Unfortunately the visitors had been unable to muster a full team and defaulted on Board 5. In addition, their Boards 3 and 4 arrived very late and were each 20 to 30 minutes down at the outset even after a clock start of 7.50 p.m. However, no Chorlton player lost on time, and all enjoyed a friendly match (with the exception of Andy W), which is the main thing. Special thanks to Andy W for playing a cool game of musical chairs.
The scorecard reads:
1. Paul Bamford 0.5 0.5 Howard Hughes
2. Bill Tait 1 0 John Haines
3. Mike Cunnane 1 0 Philippe Noel
4. Andy Buckley 1 0 Chris Hallsworth
5. (Andy Walker present) 1 0 default.